If there is a flaw in our legal system it is the ability of the Supreme Court to reject cases without comment or justification and the requirement for a plaintif to prove 'legal s is actually difficultanding' in which he or she has to show actual damages to make a case. As such it is actually quite diffucult (not to mention very expensive) to get a case heard in front of the Supreme Court. It is not enough to be an American citizen affected by a law or act of the government, you must be a victim as the father of Anwar al Awlaki discovered when he tried to get his son off the U.S. assasination list.

Challenges to the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban and various state and city assault weapon bans have never made it to the Supreme Court. It took 22 years for Washington DC's Firearms Control Regulations Act to make it to the Supreme Court in the well publicized District of Columbia v Heller case. None the less D.C. v Heller affirmed, or rather reaffirmed the individual right to own firearms.

But the National Firearms Act, the law which placed taxes and heavy restrictions on various weapons including automatic weapons and short barreled rifles and shotguns was heard in the Supreme Court in 1939's United States v Miller.

Miller was charged with transporting a shotbarreled shotgun (barrel length of less than 18 inches) across state lines without having paid the $200 tax required by the National Firearms Act of 1934. The government won that case and the restriction on THAT weapon was held constitutional but what is interesting is the governments argument and the decision of the court.

The government argued four main points and two of them are particularly noteworthy to current discussion relating to forearms restrictions. One being the Second Amendment protects ONLY ownership of MILITARY style weapons and the second that the shotgun in question did NOT meet military specification therefore could be subject to restrictions.

Prior to the Supreme Court hearing the case, the defendant was killed and legal counsel without funding did not show to ardue the case, the government argued the case without rebuttal. The courts decion stated that in absense of any evidence that short barreled shot guns had any millitary use, the could not say they were protected by the 2nd amendment. They also affirmed the militia as being 'all males phisically capable of acting in concert for the sommon defense'. The decision did not specifically state though the the right applied only to said 'militia' (all able males).

It is interesting to note that the military had infact used short barreled shotguns similar to the one Miller was convicted with in military service but of course noone was there to challenge the government and their lie that they hadn't. Also interesting is that many of the other guns banned then and now by the NFA ALSO had military use but no other case made it to the Supreme Court.

Unfortunately in order to challenge any ban, one might have to be arrested, charged and convicted to have any legal standing and such risk will likely be unacceptable to most. So the government can take authortarian meassures to restrict rights, enforce them at gunpoint and with the threat of revokation of the remainder or your rights, force you into submission.